We had already established that something was needed within the edit to piece together each hallucination scene, so I came up with the 'tunnel' concept, where we'd have singles of each character, a slow track in on their face, to signify whose mind we, the audience, would be entering. I'm not sure why this wasn't thought about before, maybe in Will's head he had it all figured out but then it came to the edit and it didn't work/pan out how he had envisaged? Either way we had found a solution to this issue that had arisen in the edit, making life easier for Aimee and giving our production a higher quality.
(Still shot from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1968 - Star gate scene)
f/3.6
ISO - 40
Shutter Speed - 1/50
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Track & Dolly
UHD(4K) - 25FPS
MONDAY 8TH APRIL
We booked out the room for Tuesday 9th but had set up the room on the 8th so that we could prepare for the actual shoot day with the actors. Aimee and Ebony had set the green screen up, and I had the camera sorted, unfortunately we did not have the track and dolly for this day as Drey and George had it booked out. So for this practice run through I thought on my feet and had Will push me on a wheeled chair whilst I held the camera. This technique unfortunately didn't really have the desired effect that we had hoped for. The footage from it was too jittery and extremely hard to keep the target in focus, as my arms were being jolted by the wheels changing direction continuously. The green screen however looked fine, and I had Aimee do a quick test of the green screen before we shot with the actors just so we knew it would actually work. We did find that the green screen wasn't evenly matched with the lighting, so I manoeuvred the lights at an equal distance and at the same light strength in the hope that it would come through to the edit with a clean back drop once we corrected it. Another issue I had was trying to keep the object in focus for the track in, which I was struggling with massively, so I thought it would be best to use the auto-focus on the camera. I switched from using the manual focus to auto-focus in the practice run and immediately felt more comfortable. All my responsibility now was keeping the object/character in the centre of frame, which was much more manageable. Furthermore, I spoke to Ferg briefly about our concept and goals with the green screen, and he was extremely informative about how to get the best out of it and what things to avoid whilst using it. He stated that you need to have quite a distance between your subject matter and the green screen, to make sure that the green screen is not in focus/not sharp so that when you apply the alpha key (essentially turning it black) it's super smooth and the image that is presented on it looks authentic. I took the information on board, went back into our set up and started to make the distance between the subject matter and green screen bigger by moving it back.
As well as the green screen footage we needed, Will also wanted to re-shoot certain shots from scene 9 and scene 14 as he wanted more of a performance from the actors, so me and Callum set up at the location in preparation for filming. These scenes were when they first take the drugs, and when they begin the podcast. We were unfortunately not going to have Andrew their for recording, as he had prior arrangements, at first this didn't seem as such a negative, as in the majority of the groups head we were just getting more coverage and we wouldn't actually need sound. However Will had wanted to shoot the scene from the top, with sound, this obviously must of got lost in communication, so we had to make the best of a bad situation, and Aimee had to jump on the sound.
(Green Screen test footage)
(Practice run through of the green screen footage, Monday 8th)
TUESDAY 9TH
It came to the actual filming day with the actors, and as everything was pretty much set I wasn't nervous at all about how the day would pan out. We got to the studios with the actors and began filming. A bonus was that Drey and George had finished with the track and dolly so we were thankfully able to utilise it. I wanted to use the track and dolly to give this production more of a dynamic feel, as discussed in the group after watching our rough cuts, we felt there wasn't anything that particularly blew us away with our piece. It did get me thinking about our shoot days, and why we didn't try more dynamic camera movement, however Will was pretty consistent with what he wanted, I would try to spice it up, some idea's were tried and others were met with resistant resulting in not attempting. Anyway, we knew that this particular shot would add a greater depth to the narrative and would piece the hallucination parts together, so we had to master it, and we did, several times. We did it from several angles, moving only the track and dolly, and the subject would stay where it is, so in the edit, we could do a extremely fast paced cuts between each character, and clearly indicating which character's hallucination we were about to enter. We felt we had to make this clear as the prior viewings to our rough cut had been met with questions over confusion about whose mind we enter first. Then we went back to our main location to record more coverage and to re-shoot from the top scene 9/14 collectively. Myself and Callum had set up the mise en scene on Sunday, so we were all ready to go once the crew and cast arrived. This sped the process up massively, saving us a lot of time sorting everything out when the actors were on set.
As I mentioned earlier regarding the miscommunication amongst ourselves about shooting scene 14 from the top, and not having Andrew for our sound, did impact slightly on our stresses on the day of filming.
EQUIPMENT LIST -
Track & Dolly
Tripod
Panasonic DVX 200
Tungsten lights
3x LED Lights
Green Screen
WHY
The whole reason of this re-shoot for more coverage, was to add more dynamism and production value to our project. I knew we needed something to piece together the hallucinations and to also signify clearly to the audience whose mind we were entering first/next. So that's why I came up with this concept, which I feel we successfully pulled off. It's up to Aimee now, what she wants to project onto the green screen, but some kind of effect that emulates a similar aesthetic to that of Kubrick's, 2001 Space Odyssey, will be the desired one. The framing for the shot was quite tight, I made sure to do a mid shot, mid close up, close up, and extreme close up. As i've been an editor before for other projects, I always know how valuable it is to have as much footage to play around with, and from experience, the more footage you have, the better. Obviously from the practice run the day before we knew shot for shot what we needed out of this, but when it came to the day I experimented after getting the essential shots, and had the actors face the wall, and on my command I would have the turn and stare down the camera lens. This was just a quick idea that came to my mind, I thought it could work in the edit, but i'm not sure if Aimee will use it. In my head a slow track in and then when I shouted 'Go' they'd turn and I'd increase my tracking speed, seemed quite jarring and unsettling, which is what their character's mind state would be like. After research as well, in relation to how to make your characters seem as if they're in a challenging psychological state, you're meant to play with the movement a lot, and how you have your subject matter set in your composition.
To conclude, I felt that the day's of filming were a success, from my perspective in terms of the camera work, as I captured what I set out to and hopefully adding more depth and dynamism to our project. We need to see how it will come up in the edit now, with imagery and vast sound effects essential to making this narrative far greater than it currently is. As we're approaching the end, I can see it slowly being pieced together, bit by bit, maybe not at the rate that I would like, but unfortunately there isn't anything I can do about that.
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